Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Fahrenheit In A Celsius World

Chicago, Illinois, USA

August 8, 2004

This essay,
Fahrenheit In A Celsius World,
is the companion piece to
Wheel Alignment.

I grew up in a Fahrenheit world. I think inside the paradigm of a
Fahrenheit world. I don't think inside the paradigm of a Celsius world.
In a Fahrenheit world, 32° is freezing; 40° is uncomfortably
cold; 100° is a very, very hot day. In a Celsius world, 32° is
comfortably warm; 40° is a very, very hot day; a 100° day would
be a killer - literally.

Getting temperature in Celsius is strange to me - odd, offputting, and
unfamiliar. I have it that compared to a Celsius world, a Fahrenheit
world is normal, right, and clearer. Recently I started to
notice how that renders my communication with a Celsius world
ineffective. I think in a Fahrenheit world speaking Fahrenheit world
notions in Fahrenheit into a Celsius world where people think and speak
in Celsius.

Reality is it's cold, comfortable, or hot regardless of what scale is
used to measure temperature. It's not that I can't translate from one
scale to the other. I can. I learned how to do that in high school.
It's simply that I'm thrown not to. I'm thrown to stay
with the scale with which I'm most familiar.

Consider a Fahrenheit world as a world of
transformation.
Consider a Celsius world as all other worlds. It requires a stretch to
communicate
transformation
effectively with worlds in which
transformation
isn't already present. It's also human to not know how to stretch this
way.

Making it your personal business to take on communicating with a
Celsius world from a Fahrenheit world may not be familiar territory nor
easy nor comfortable. Yet stretching to take this on is a requirement
if you intend to speak
transformation
which enrolls and empowers your listeners.